Oil seals and gatters again.

[Tajman]

With my chassis back from being blasted and primed, I have a much clearer view of how to go forward with the rebuild of the 1967 Haflinger.
I had my suspicions confirmed when I changed all the oils, 4x hubs, front and back diff boxes and then found oil weeping from both front inboard rubber gatters. Both look ready for renewal anyway. ( By the way there seem to be no drain plug for the transmission tube, to change the oil ?!)
Well I have looked at as many posts with regard to putting new oil seals and rubber boots on the half shafts and tried to gain some knowledge from the workshop manual, but I'm finding it difficult to really be confident that I know whats required and feeling nervous about starting the job.
Is there any simple description of the procedure involved, anywhere on the net? I read about fitting 2 seals back to back and fitting 2 piece rubber boot/gatter.
I would appreciate if someone could advise me or at least point out the pit falls that I may encounter on the way. For sure it would be a good time to do the job with easy acessability . Maybe I should consider doing the rear ones as well at this point in time. Or is it " if its working, dont fix it"
Cheers for now . Jeff

[heinkeljb]

Hi Jeff,
Welcome to the forum ( if we haven’t welcomed you before)!!

There is NO drain plug for the central drive tube only a fill hole! Don’t ask why, no one knows!

As far as rubber gaiters and oil seals go on the drive shafts, I’ll post something later when I get home. Trying to write something like that on a phone is not easy.

John

[AustHaflinger]

I use the split CV gaiters as I dont want to pull the swing arms out. The main issue I found was the larger aftermarket clamps can be a little big so had to reduce them a bit.

Otherwise they have lasted really well.

Garry

[heinkeljb]

The "operators manual" which is a little book actually has quite a good description of how you take the front hubs off in order to re-grease the rezepa joint (CV joint). THis can be used in order to get to the strange, double lip seal in the end of the drive shaft.
The rubber gaiters for the inboard part of the swing arms come in two flavours - 1 piece and split.
1 Piece require you at an absolute minimum to remove the drive shaft running up the middle of the swing arms. Then you can warm the rubber gaiters up a bit and get them positioned on the swing arms and the differential carrier plates. BE WARNED - if you do it this way, you will have to struggle with getting the drive shaft "stones", machined square blocks that are a sliding fit in the differentials - very awkward to get in even if you can see what you are doing - the rubber gaiters don't help.
The other way would be to take the differential side plates off and put the drive shafts in place in the diff, then slide the swing arms over and along the drive shafts.
Using split gaiters means you can leave the drive shafts, swing arms alone and just wrap the gaiters around the appropriate places and using a bit of sealant on the split part, do the little nuts and bolts up, then with a bit more sealant, use either the provided metal straps or some other strap system as Gary pointed out above to secure the gaiters to the swing arms. The joint of the split gaiter should be positioned UNDER the front "leading" edge of the swing arm. The parts manual has a picture showing this on the pages dealing with the axles.

If you want a more detail explanation of bits to take off, or some part of the above, let me know and I will post some thing.

John

[heinkeljb]

Jeff,

It would also be helpful if you could fill out you location a little bit. This is an international forum and we have people from all over the world posting. It helps to know if the person you are dealing with is local'ish or far away!

Also, this post would be more relevant under the Gearbox and Driveline section.

John

[Tajman]

Thanks John and Garry for your helpful comments. I will endeavour to post in the correct subject area in future. I can not see where to put my location details or list my vehicles. (not a regular user of forums). I live just west of Portsmouth, South of Fareham . Hampshire .UK.
I have downloaded the repair manual and also now the parts manual so some studying is now required.
Thanks for now
Jeff.

[AustHaflinger]

As John has mentioned, those little "stones" that live in the sides of the diff housing and on the end of each axle are a real pain to get in when putting the axle back in (these form a type of CV on the inner end of each axle). It is hard enough to do with the boots off and the swing arm on but if you are using standard boots it would be almost impossible. Certainly with later Hafs, why they did not use standard modern CVs is beyond me.

The idea of having the diffs and swing arms filled with diff oil is really a nonsense and there is no reason for it. The result is the special oil seal on the hub end of the front swing arm is all so important because if it is faulty you will slowly loose your diff oil. Also when mine failed, they were not recognised by my local industrial bearing supply company and I could only get them from a Haf parts supplier - for you this would be Haflinger Technik in Scotland who provide great service at a good price - nevertheless these special seals are expensive for what they are.

Good luck with it.

Garry

[heinkeljb]

Jeff,

Go to the top of the page, find your "User control panel" on the right hand side. When in there, go to the left hand side of the page and open "your profile". In the open section on the right, you will find a field called "location". All we need is a general location, like you posted in the thread. It will then show on the left hand side of any post you make allowing people to see roughly where in the world you are.
I am along the south coast as well, probably about three hours away by Haflinger!

John

[bernard callahan]

You can can get the front axle tube seals in Australia, I have them and they are very reasonably priced.